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OK, what do you want to hear? To be brutally frank,this image is not a good one, you have a tree, or a post growing out of the person's head, pose is all wrong,exposure is wrong,there is a strong sunlit patch on one shoulder, and if the model was looking the wrong way in some shots,why did you take them? You, the photographer are in charge,you need to direct your models.And the last thing you need is a bad reputation-Remember this: "If you do a good job,the client will tell 3 people-if you do a bad one,they will tell 30 people." By the way, the camera doesn't misfocus-the photographer does.
To help you in future:
Concerning portraits, It is better to use a non-directional (Diffused) light source, due to the gradual gradation of its shadow, which doesn’t mar the portrait. If you’re shooting outdoors, for the best modelling you will want the light to strike the model’s face from the side, at 45 degrees vertical and horizontal. First get out of the direct sunlight, either in the shade of a building, or under the shelter of a tree. This will result in your model being lit by a diffused, non-directional light source, skylight or reflected light from surroundings. If you position your model looking towards this light source , the face should be lit with soft, delicate light. All you need to do is to move your subject, or your camera, to get light crossing the face.. What you want to achieve here is to have one side of the face brighter than the other by two stops exposure, giving a 3-dimensional rendering to the portrait. In case there is no tree, or building, you may need to resort to scrims, reflectors or blacks to modify the light to suit. Scrims are sheets of translucent material that are held between the sun and the subject to diffuse direct light. Reflectors are panels of card or material that reflects light, providing a soft quality of light. Usually white, silver or gold in colour, light bounces off the surface and into the shadow areas of the face. Blacks are the opposite of reflectors and they absorb light, instead of reflecting it. For indoor portraits, window light is a great source-First choose a window on the side of the house away from the sun-you don’t want direct sunlight, it’s too harsh. When you position your model close to a window, you get a soft light to one side of the face, and because the inside of the room is relatively dark, the other side of the face will be in shadow -a 3 dimensional look for your portrait.
Again, by using a reflector, ( Gold gives a warm tanned look, White will be most used, and Silver gives a glint to the model’s eye) you can arrive at the 2-stop difference - For instance F 11 for window -lit side of face, and F 5.6 for the shadow side- ( 3:1 ratio) for the ideal portrait. Or you can use fill-in flash as a last resort if reflectors, scrims or blacks aren’t immediately available. Set flash to ¼ power for head shots at 4 feet, (1200mm) or ½ power for head and shoulder shots at 6 feet (1800mm)
Regards, Ken
Last edited by kencaleno; 11-14-2008 at 07:31 PM.
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